


feels like we only go backwards

by WDW



Series: Stanuary 2018 [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dimension Travel, Gen, Stanuary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-03-01 14:21:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13296699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WDW/pseuds/WDW
Summary: "We found him in the woods!" Mabel says cheerfully. "Dipper thought he was you for a moment, but then he -"His hair is a shock of gray, his glasses cracked. He's wearing a rumpled combination of tattered trench coat and red sweater that looks entirely ridiculous in an Oregon summer. He's looking at Stan with a look of distant confusion that makes him look, for one strange moment, like an overgrown owl.Stan can't breathe."Ford?"[Written for Stanuary Week 1: ConAlternatively:  Stan's best con has always been fooling other people into thinking he was someone actually worthwhile.]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> An experiment.

So, here's the thing: Stan doesn't even see it coming.

He's been working on the damn portal for half of his life now, staying up till the ass-crack of dawn near everyday to get in those extra few hours of work, hammering in nails and wielding plates under the almost physical weight of the thing's shadow. Lately, he's been wondering if squeezing in that hour or two or twenty-three even mattered anymore after thirty fucking _years_ of this.

And yeah, he tells himself that this wasn't any kind of road he wanted to head down on, that Ford was still out there somewhere, that it was all a matter of time. Everything he's been telling himself for the past three decades.

None of that works, because that raw nauseating feeling of hopelessness in his gut, _well_. That just keeps on growing, like a black hole in one of his brother's astrophysics textbooks, taking up so much of him that he thinks one day it'll just eat him up entirely.

A bit hard to muster up any kind of blind hope, after all that.

But maybe Stan really should have. Maybe not predicted the whole thing, but at least had some bit of _what-if_ tickling at the back of his mind.

(Especially after he near had a heart attack by finding not one but _two_ of the journals he had been looking for for thirty years, in the span of about three hours. If there was gonna be a turning point in the long sequence of screw-ups that had been Stan's life, that was probably it.)

Because what happens is this:

It's a lazy Saturday afternoon and Stan's in his boxers cleaning the fish (lizard, amphibian, whatever) tank when the kids walk in the door, carefully leading a man that is his not-quite-mirror-image by both of his six-fingered hands.

Stan looks up. The brush in his hands clatters wetly on the ground.

"We found him in the woods!" Mabel says cheerfully. "Dipper thought he was you for a moment, but then he -"

His hair is a shock of gray, his glasses cracked. He's wearing a rumpled combination of tattered trench coat and red sweater that looks entirely ridiculous in an Oregon summer. He's looking at Stan with a look of distant confusion that makes him look, for one strange moment, like an overgrown owl.

Stan can't breathe.

_"Ford?"_

 

* * *

 

( _Let's rewind a bit._

The days after that brat Gideon steals away the Shack and every ounce of progress Stan had ever made on bringing his brother back... those get pretty dark.

He starts thinking a lot more, and that's never been a good thing. One night he hears the kids whispering to each other a room over about having a bread sandwich - one, shared! - for dinner and _do you think Stan's really sending us back home?_ and he knows he's blown it again. For the second time in his life, he's losing even more than he thought he still had.

And that's when Stan thinks, like a bolt through the blue - _Ford would have done better than this_.

Ford would never have gotten tricked by some snot-nosed kid into losing the Shack, Ford would never have had to send the kids home halfway through summer. Hell, Ford would never have pushed his brother through some insane extradimensional portal and left him there for thirty years and counting.

But Ford was gone, and guess whose fault _that_ was?

Now Stan, Stan's been acting his brother for thirty years now and he wants to think he's got a pretty decent grasp of _that_ particular con. After a lifetime together and apart, he knows how Ford acts, those little nervous habits that he thought no one ever noticed, the odd intonation he had when he said certain words that he had spent years reading and never hearing.

He knows what Ford thinks, _how_ he thinks. He has to, to maintain the hardest and most comprehensive con Stan has ever had to keep going.

And if there was one thing he was sure of, it was that Ford hates Stanley Pines, Stan, _him_.

He wasn't quite self-destructive enough to go down the long mental list of reasons why, but he knew it was more than enough.

Because why wouldn't it be? It sure was for Stan.)

 

* * *

 

The kids are saying something, but Stan's hearing aide must had finally run out of juice or something because he can't hear them at all. There's just the _thump-thump_ rhythm of his heart echoing loudly in his ears, because that couldn't be his brother in front of him but it _was_ , it had to be, because who the hell else in this world had his face except for Ford?

He can't look away.

"Ford," Stan says - croaks, really, because his mouth feels drier than the Sahara desert right now. He feels uncomfortably exposed. He really wishes he had kept his pants on. "Is that really you?"

He's been rehearsing the first thing he would say to his brother for three decades now, and these weren't it. The words sound stupid the moment he says them.

But his brother just keeps looking at him that same dazed way, like he doesn't even recognize him. "I don't -" He says finally, and his voice is small and halfting and _afraid_ in a way that Stan hasn't heard in a long, long time. "I don't know who -"

And. Stan's got a brain, despite popular belief, and there's enough he's seen and heard that there's a sinking feeling in his gut telling him that maybe he hadn't gotten his brother back, not really.

"I'm Stan," he says. "Stanley Pines. I'm your brother." He pretends for a little bit longer that the thickness in his throat is just from a rapid-onset summer cold, or something. "And you're Stanford Pines. You - you remember that, at least?"

"Stanford Pines," Ford repeats, a new note in his voice. Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but Stan thinks it could just be recognition.

And the way he says it - it sounds familiar, in a way that Stan has almost forgotten.

It takes a moment for him to place exactly where he had heard it - when he had last seen his brother thirty years ago, and had been struck by how deliberately proper and enunciated his speech was, as if he had wanted to prove his college education with everything he'd got. It was almost unbearably pretentious.

But this was _good_ , good in a way that puts a grin on Stan's face even though he's still mentally telling himself not to get his hopes up. Good, because that was also something very _Ford_.

"And I'm Stan," He repeats, and doesn't even try to keep the desperation from his voice. He takes a step forward, all tentative. "Your brother, yeah? I know it's been a real long time, thirty years, but -"

"Of course I remember you," Ford says, and his voice is all cold fury.

Stan shuts up.

His brother's body language had switched in an instance into something well-balanced and confident, familiar in a way he could not deny. There was no doubt about it. This was all Ford now.

Which meant the quiet anger and disgust Stan could read etched clear as day in the sharp way his brother held himself - there was no doubt that _that_ was all Ford too.

That's what made it hurt all the more.

There was nothing wavering or unsure about Ford's voice when he continues, voice low and gruff with the force of his anger. "How could I _possibly_ forget, after what you did to me thirty years ago?"

Stan doesn't know how to reply. He tells himself it's not because of surprise. He must have run through a thousand and one variations on his brother's return, some with hugs and gratitude and maybe even a punch in the face, but he would be lying if he said he hadn't been expecting in some degree this animosity, this anger.

But still, despite it all, he had been hoping -

"What - what _did_ he do to you?" Came Dipper's hushed voice, and Stan didn't know he could sink any lower in the ground but, well. Just look at him now.

Ford doesn't even turn to look at the kid. "He pushed me into an interdimensional portal thirty years ago, and left me there for dead."

It's like something out of Stan's worst nightmares.

"Ford," he says, and his voice sounds distant and pleading to his own ears, "It was an accident, I swear. I wasn't gonna leave you there, I've - I've been trying to get you back for the past thirty _years_. The portal downstairs, I rebuilt most of that from your plans and I was just about t' get it working -"

"Did you _really_ think you could have ever repaired my portal?" Ford asks disbelievingly.

Stan stutters to a stop. He has a sneaking suspicion that there was no right answer he could give. "...Maybe. I don't know."

"Stan, you never even went to college!" His brother exclaims disbelievingly. "You couldn't even do what Dad told you to do! Why, while I was out there making money for our family, _you_ only got by because Ma was sending you her earnings whenever she could."

Stan flinches. He hadn't thought that Ma would have told Ford that. "I followed all that stuff you wrote in those journals of yours," he tries feebly. "I got it turned _on_ -"

Ford sighs, and Stan's words just trail off. "It doesn't matter," his brother says curtly, his expression tight. "Even if you had managed to bring me back, it would not have changed the fact that you were the reason I was stranded there in the first place."

"Ford, I -"

"You're still the person who ruined my dreams," Ford says all calm and clear, like it was simple matter of fact to him. And - maybe it was, because that had been what Stan had always figured. It's still a one-two gut-punch to hear his brother say it, just like that.

"You spent all those years obsessing over that wreck of a boat, as if I would have _ever_ chosen not to go to college just to stay with a knucklehead like you to scrape barnacles off the bottom of -"

" _Stop it._ "

Mabel's voice is quiet but cutting. Ford turns slowly, with an air of confusion.

Stan winces. "Mabel, sweetie -"

"I don't really know who you are, Mister," she continues in the same tone, and she keeps looking Ford in the eyes. "And I don't really know what's going on. But you can't say things like that to Grunkle Stan, even if you _are_ the Author. And Stan's brother."

Ford looks at her for a long moment. There's a strange blankness in his eyes, as if Mabel being there had thrown him off entirely. The expression on his face is one that Stan can't read for the life of him.

He feels the need to intervene. His brother had no idea who Mabel or Dipper was, and while he knew all along to some degree how his brother was going to react to _him_... there was no predicting what he would do or say to the kids.

"Ford," he says quietly, "those are Shermie's grandkids. They've got nothing to do with what I did. Gimme a few minutes to explain things to 'em, and then we can -"

"Of course, pumpkin," his brother says to Mabel, distantly, almost dreamily.

He doesn't sound like himself at all. There's none of the vehement anger that had been in his voice, as if all of the fight in him had just drained right out of him.

And just like that he starts walking forward, more than a bit unsteadily, right past Stan and towards the back of the Shack. He doesn't even look back.

Stan stares for a long moment, too confused to even move or speak.

But then Ford bumps what _has_ to be pretty painfully into the doorframe and _still_ keeps stumbling forward - and despite that, despite everything, the sheer concern he has for his brother prevails.

He walks forward those few steps, reaches for his brother's shoulder. "Are - are you sure you're okay, Sixer?"

His brother's hand bats his away at lightning speed. " _Don't touch me_ ," Ford snaps at him, almost cowering in the way he shielded his shoulder, like some kind of feral animal snarling over their own wound.

There's something in his eyes that makes Stan draw back. "Alright, alright. I just -"

And then Ford's gone, disappeared around the corner with only the fading sound of his unbalanced footsteps in his wake. It's just Stan now, with the smoldering remains of his lifelong hopes and dreams, and two twelve-year olds who looked like they had a few thousand questions to ask, _each_.

Dipper starts talking first, sounding stunned, and... something else too.

"Was - was that _really_ the Author of the Journals? Your brother?"

"Yeah, he is," Stan says, like he's trying to convince himself. He sits down, and that helps a little but not enough with the lack of breath in his lungs.

The kid's voice goes a lot more quieter. "But - where _was_ he this whole time? Did you really push him into another dimension, like he said?" Then, with no small amount of disappointment, "And why - why is he _like_ that?".

"I don't know, kid," Stan says, and there's no lie in it at all. He covers his face with his hands and tries to focus on the sensation of it. "He hadn't - I just don't - "

Mabel sits down on one side of him, Dipper on the other. "Grunkle Stan," his niece says reproachfully but kindly, "I think you really need to start telling me and Dipper what's going on."

"Starting right now would be good," Dipper coughs, not so subtly.

And he does, because what else was there to do? There was no point in keeping the rest of his secrets, not anymore.

It feels uncomfortably strange to be saying this stuff out loud when he didn't remember ever doing it before - about him and Ford as kids, about what happened at the science fair, and then everything that happened afterwards. And then, the postcard in the mail.

About the portal, their fight. And, with hesitance, the thirty years after that.

After Stan's done, Dipper says immediately, "There's something weird about all of this." 

Stan gives him a flat look. "Kid, you think?"

"No, not like that! It just - it just doesn't make _sense_. The stuff your brother said to you -" Dipper tugs on the brim of his hat unhappily. "I would never say anything like that to Mabel."

"I would never say anything like that to Dipper either!" Mabel pipes up.

He laughs at that, just a little bitterly. "Kids, I don't think either of you two has ever messed up as bad as I did."

"It doesn't make sense," the boy says again with an all too familiar stubbornness. "That _couldn't_ be the Author. I read his journal from cover to cover, the person who wrote that was - not _like this_."

"Grunkle Stan, maybe that wasn't your real brother?" Mabel suggests earnestly. "Dipper and I fought off a shapeshifter a couple days ago, he could transform to look like anyone -"

Stan doesn't want to interrupt her, but it's all a bit too much for him. "Pumpkin, I've been pretending to be my brother for thirty years - I know him better than anything in this universe. That _was_ Ford, even if he, uh. Seemed kinda out of it."

"But Stan, if he was in another dimension for thirty years and _you_ didn't bring him back, who did?" Dipper argues.

He shrugs. "He's a genius, kid. He - probably found his own way back, that's my guess."

"After thirty _years_? Grunkle Stan, Mabel and I found him just kneeling in the woods, he didn't remember _anything_ until you started talking to him. You have to admit there's something weird about that!"

Stan goes quiet at that. Then he sighs, and looks away. "Look, kids. I really appreciate what you're doing, but there's - nothing more to this. There really isn't. I made a whole lot of mistakes, and Ford has every right to be angry at me. If I was Ford, I'd hate me too. I just - never meant for you two to get dragged into this. It's ugly, but it's something between me and my brother."

"But Grunkle Stan -" Mabel tries.

She's interrupted by a loud sound, one that comes off as halfway between one of those stock sci-fi laser shots and a cat gargling up a hairball.

And -

There's almost no time to react but Stan grabs the kids and dives to the ground, trying to cover them with his body as much as he can.

\- the door to the Shack explodes with an earth-shaking _bang_.

Stan looks up cautiously, still pushing his niblings down, squinting through the debris and settling dust. He's caught between _thank God the kids are alright_ and _that's going to be a_ bitch _to clean up_ and pure, undiluted _what the_ fuck.

He hears the sound of footsteps. Then, voices.

Familiar ones.

"I can't believe you just _blew up_ the Mystery Shack!"

"Just a small portion of it!  Dipper, my boy, desperate times call for desperate measures, and I had to get past the locked door somehow. More importantly, however..." A pause. "My sensors are showing that it's been nearly seven hours now since he entered this dimension, which means we are on a losing race against time before anyone touches their dimensional counterpart and winds up ending this entire uni -"

The footsteps come to an abrupt stop.

"- Oh," says their owner. He's looking down at Stan like he's seeing a ghost.

Mabel tugs herself out of his slack grip and turns to look up at the newcomers. Her eyes go wide.

_"_ _Sci-fi Grunkle Stan?"_

 

* * *

  

There was no denying it, really. The guy standing in front of him has his face, _and_ he's wearing the Mr. Mystery black suit-pants combo that Stan had a half-dozen of in his closet. The only difference between the two of them, as far as he can make out from where he was kneeling, was the seven-foot-long glowing space laser-gun the other Stan has strapped to his back.

Which, yeah, was a pretty obvious one in hindsight.

And standing next to him were Dipper and Mabel - scuffed, bruised, and generally looking like they had gone through several layers of hell in the past day, but unmistakeably _them_.

For one long moment, all six of them just kinda freeze, gawking at each other like a bunch of idiots because admittedly - Stan thinks in the sanctity of his own mind - what the actual _fuck_.

"Stay behind me, kids," the other Stan orders with an authoritative certainty that _he_ sure wished he had right now. "Making any physical contact with your counterparts _will_ mean the end of this universe!"

The other Dipper turns pale. "Uh, exactly what extent does that go to? Because we're all in the same room right now, and there _has_ to be skin cells and stuff like that, right?"

The other him hesitates for a moment. "...Truth be told, the alternate universe Fiddleford didn't have the chance to go into much detail, unfortunately, but I suppose that as long as we avoid all direct touch -"

"That sounds like something we should figure out if we ever start traveling through dimensions again!" the other Mabel says brightly.

Other Stan looks a bit sheepish at that. "I have to admit, I hadn't exactly been thinking about long term consequences when we set out -"

"...Yeah, I understand exactly nothing about this conversation," Stan announces to the room.

All three newcomers turn to look at him at that, and he's struck for a moment just how tired and beaten down they all look, like they're about a few seconds away from passing out and maybe finally getting some well-needed rest.

Most of all, there's something uncomfortable about the way they look at him: with some desperate, hopeful joy that didn't seem like it could appear in response to Stanley Pines, of all people.

The other him looks the most overwhelmed. He even walks forward a few steps towards Stan, steps wobbly, and there's some wetness shining in his eyes that makes Stan want to cough awkwardly and look away until the guy had his act back together.  He doesn't know if he should be backing away or what.

" _Stanley_ ," the man says, his voice cracking just a bit at the end.

"...Yeah?" Stan tries, as if he wasn't confused out of his mind.

And just like that, the other him has crossed the remaining few feet of distance and _clings_ onto him, arms holding him tightly and leaving him breathless in more than one way. He's really crying now, making wet sobbing noises right next to his ear and leaving a gooey mess on his top that would be damn gross if anything in the world made sense right now.

Stan pats him on the back, a bit awkwardly.

"That's not our Stan," the other Mabel says quietly. "Grunkle Ford, you _know_ that."

Stan goes still. "Hang on. What did you just call -"

"...I know, sweetie." The man lets go of him and pulls away. For the first time, Stan gets a good look at the guy's hands. His mind goes blank.

"I - understand that on some objective level, but _seeing_ him -"

Stan grabs one of the man's hands and brings them up to eye level, as if seeing them up front would change the number of fingers he can count on them. Then, the other.

Six. _Six_.

Stan lets go like he's been burned.

_"Ford?"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does Sunday count as part of the new week? Eh. I Just want to finish a Stanuary entry on time.
> 
> This should be finished within the next day or so if I can maintain this motivation.
> 
> Let me know what you think! As always, any and all predictions, expectations, theories are welcomed. Doesn't have to be particularly detailed or anything, I just like the feeling of not throwing stuff out into the void.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is! The fastest turn-around I've made in a while!

He can't find the words, for one long moment. "But - but you were just -"

"I'm not the Stanford Pines of this dimension," Ford says gently - or maybe he's the other Ford, or not a Ford at all, and Stan really was too old to keep twisting his mind like this. "The three of us are from a universe adjacent from this one, in multiverse terms. The Stanford of your dimension is still where he was before. We're just visiting, that's all."

"Oh," Stan says dully. He doesn't know if that's a relief or not.

"If you're all from another dimension, then what are you doing _here_?" Dipper - _his_ Dipper - demands, eyes suspicious. He doesn't blame the kid, considering what had happened the first time around.

"We're looking for someone," Ford says automatically. He glances at Stan, and revises, "We're looking for the Stanley of our dimension."

Stan blinks. "... _Me?"_ He doesn't strike himself as the kind of guy who would willingly get involved in all this science-fiction stuff, other dimension or not.

It's when his brother - which he's gonna stick to calling him, even though he knew he wasn't exactly _his_ \- goes a bit quiet that Stan realizes he had said all of that out loud. "Not willingly," Ford says.

"Huh."

A shadow passes over Ford's face. "There was - an incident in our world that greatly weakened the walls between dimensions," he says. "It was an accident, and he was right at ground zero. Stanley must have... slipped right through, before we could find him."

That sounds just familiar enough to be discomforting. "And you think he's here?" He asks, just a bit dubiously. Stan's not sure how to feel about there being another one of him just walking around the place.

"We _know_ he is," Ford corrects immediately. "He was tracked to this exact dimension. I've checked every calculation a dozen times."

...It's irrational, but Stan feels a sudden pang of jealousy for the other him. A Stan whose brother would do all of this for him.

"Huh," he says instead, keeping his voice light. "Just how detailed is that tracker of yours? It's a big planet."

"Actually," Ford says, brightening up, "we've been following the transmitter in my coat ever since we've entered this dimension! In fact, it seems -" He squints down at the glowing thingamajig he has in his hand, " - that he's. In the Shack right now," he says a bit slowly, looking up.

Stan blinks. Looks around, as if some other him was just gonna pop up from behind the fridge, or something.

"He should be right... here?" His brother trails off, looking entirely lost. He looks at Stan questioningly.

"Yeah, well. Pretty sure I would've noticed if there was another me walking around here," Stan says with a shrug.

"That doesn't make sense," Ford whispers, his brows furrowed, and keeps pressing buttons on the thing he's holding in his hand. "This works, this _has_ to work, I did everything there was to be done, I -"

There's a rising note of desperation in his brother's voice, and Stan can't say he's too concerned about what's going on with his own dimensional counterpart, but seeing Ford break down in front of him - it makes him feel something leaden and gnawing at the pit of his gut.

"Why don't you, uh, recalibrate that thing or something and try again?" He offers weakly.

"I can't," Ford says, a raggedness to his voice. "There was just one chance. Any further travel and I tear the multiverse asunder. There's no telling what could happen, it could be Weirdmageddon or worse -"

It's pretty clear to Stan now that his brother's talking to himself more than he's talking to him, right now. There's a manic glint in his eyes. "But I could try. I could -"

From upstairs, there comes the slightly muffled sound of breaking glass.

Stan winces. So that's where his Ford went.

The Ford right in front of him snaps his head up, eyes wide. "What was that?" He demands.

"It's you," he says with a sigh. "The you of this universe, anyways."

"...Me?" His brother repeats, aghast. " _I'm_ here, in Gravity Falls? You've fixed the portal already?"

"No, but -"

"That just doesn't make any sense," Ford says, matter-of-fact in a way that makes his expression tighten. "Within the relative timeline of this particular dimension, I should still be preparing for my final journey into the Nightmare Realm. And there's no possible way my counterpart can be on Earth without the portal repaired -"

"Yeah, well, I don't know about any of that," Stan cuts in, not even trying to hide his frustration. "He just showed up, ridiculous trench coat and all -"

"Trench coat?"

" - and it's not like _he_ went outa his way to explain anything about the past thirty years he's been gone," he finishes. "If ya wanna know about all of that, you're gonna have to talk to him yourself."

Stan grimaces. "Maybe he'll actually talk to _you_."

Ford's quiet for a long, long moment.

"He told you his name was Stanford Pines?" He asks finally.

He doesn't expect that question at all. "Uh," Stan says slowly. "...Yes? More or less."

There's a look on his brother's face that Stan can't read at all.

"I need to talk to him," Ford says heavily, a tightness in his expression that wasn't there before.

(And Stan, Stan knows how to put together clues and puzzles as well as anyone out there. He's had plenty of time to learn.

Even if he doesn't know what to make of what little he could figure out here.)

"Great," he says, all false cheerfulness. "I'll show you where he is."

" _No_ ," Ford says immediately. "I - I can't explain right now, Stanley, there's not enough time for that. I'll tell you everything afterwards. But right now, please trust me when I say... this is something I need to talk to your Ford about _alone._ "

Stan doesn't move.

" _Please_ , Stanley."

He lets out a breath. "Fine," Stan says shortly and steps aside. He keeps his fingers crossed behind him all the while.

Ford runs right by him without another word, and for the second time that day, Stan watches his brother disappear around the corner.

Stan waits for a while after that, not too long, not too short.

Just enough time.

The kids don't say anything at all, they just watch. When he turns around, both pairs of kids look up at him quietly, with that exact knowing expression multiplied by four.

He should've known, really. Those kids have always had him figured out better than near anyone else in the world.

"You all know I'm gonna do it," he says, an expression tugging at his lips that should be a smile but burns like a grimace. "None of ya wanna convince me not to?"

None of them do.

Stan goes upstairs.

 

* * *

 

They're up in his bedroom. He hears the murmur of voices coming from the shut - locked - door.

(On one hand, that was entirely embarrassing, considering the shit he had laying around because how could he have _known_ that his long-lost twin brother was gonna come back from the sci-fi sideburns dimension and walk right in?

On the other, Stan's been living here for thirty years. He knows how the Shack is - where to hide stuff, how to walk more quiet than any sixty-year-old man had any right to, places to see into all kinds of places. Most of all, a man had to know the place he was sleeping at night like the back of his hand. Maybe not the morally upstanding kind who _didn't_ have to worry about people robbing him blind or shanking him in his sleep.

But Stan had never been one of those, has he.)

So he eases himself up those stairs without a single creak of wood or his bones, which he calls a damn impressive accomplishment.

The keyhole is wide-open and unblocked.

He looks inside, and the first thing he sees is the full body-length mirror he bought at a garage sale a decade ago, its surface shattered beyond recognition. Large shards of glass litter the ground, and Stan stifles a wince. Those were gonna be impossible to get out of the carpet.

Sitting on Stan's bed is Ford - the first one, the one that should have been his. He's looking up blankly into the distance, at nothing in particular.

His trench coat is off, and so are his gloves. Underneath, his hands are five-fingered and bleeding profusely.

Stan breathes out, long and slow.

(He feels a whole lot of things, looking at those.

The last emotion to come is surprise.)

The other Ford _(the only Ford)_ is stooped over him, picking glass carefully out of his brother's hands. There's a tight expression on his face, one that makes Stan think that fixing up those wounds are hurting him a lot more than the person they actually belonged to.

They're talking, or at least Ford is. His voice is low and gruff, and even though he's technically already a participant in the conversation Stan can't help the feeling that he's violating something very private.

"- mine must have been the only identity you had left," Stan hears Ford murmur. "But it won't be permanent. I promise. It seems your memories return from triggers, and there are plenty of people and places to visit and talk to once we return to our own Gravity Falls. You'll be back to yourself in no time."

"...What if I don't want to go back?"

Stan's breath hitches.

The voice is strange, too much grit to be entirely his brother's, too carefully articulated to be entirely his own. It's too flat, too uncomfortably blank to sound like either of theirs, really.

Ford's voice comes high and strangled with surprise. "But Stanley, you _have_ to come home. Why on Earth would you -"

"What if," says the other Stan, with the same kind of vacant contemplativeness, "I don't wanna be Stanley Pines again?"

There's a hiss as Ford sucks in a startled breath. He doesn't talk for a little while, like he has to try and get his words together in coherent form before he can trust himself to do it.

"Why not?"

"Because he's worthless," he hears the other him say, matter-of-fact in a way that makes his own stomach twist and turn. Stan sits down completely, tilts his head back to rest against the wall. "Because all he's ever done in his life is lie and cheat. 'Cause he's a useless idiot who ruins everything he touches."

"And who told you that?" Ford asks, his voice soft and dangerous.

"Don't need anyone to tell me that. I remember it." A pause. "I remember being Stanford Pines."

His brother makes an odd noise. "But I never -"

"So why are you doing this?" The other Stan interrupts suddenly, whipping his head up. His voice sounds vicious. His voice sounds like _Ford's_. "Why did you leave your dimension, endanger the safety of all _existence_ , for _this_?"

"Stanley," Ford says slowly, carefully, "I need you to take a breath. You're not in your right mind. This isn't you. You're not doing what you think you -"

"My name is Stanford Filbrick _Pines_ ," the other Stan retorts, and he gets to his feet with a resounding _thump_. "And my identity is not up for _debate._ " He pauses. "Your's, on the other hand, is a different story. You claim to be some - alternate reality counterpart of myself, but I would never do what you have just done."

"What - what I have just done?" Stan hears Ford ask, audibly stricken. "You don't think I would risk everything to save my brother's life?"

"Not when he ruined _ours_!"

Ford is quiet for a long time. It gets a lot harder to breathe.

"...He didn't."

"He _didn_ ' _t_?" The other Stan demands, fury twisted on his face. "Don't you remember what he did to you? You gave him a chance to prove himself, and all he did was push you in that portal and steal away thirty years of your life! He took your name! Your house! Your reputation!"

His voice goes low. "He never could make anything of his own so he had to steal from you just to be happy."

Ford sounds pained. "Stanley, I don't think that. I never have."

The other Stan is panting now, short and ragged. "He was a waste of space," he spits out like a curse. "He couldn't do anything he was supposed to. Even in the end, he almost got the kids killed because he couldn't grow up for five seconds and just hold your damn _hand_."

Ford goes quiet. "You remember that," he breathes, and there's a hope in his voice that doesn't suit the circumstances at all. "Stanley, what else do you remember?"

"I remember hating him," the other Stan says darkly. "I remember hating Stanley Pines so damn _much_ because he could never be as smart or brave enough as people needed him to be. Cuz he just kept letting everyone down because somehow, he kept conning people into thinking he was worth it. And I... "

"...I remember hating him 'cause -" He pauses, for one breathless moment. "Because your life would have been perfect if he just - had never been born."

Over on the other side of the door, despite himself, Stan sucks in a breath.

" _Don't say that,_ " Ford snaps immediately. He's up on his feet now, vibrating with a vehemence that seems to shock even the other Stan. "Don't - you _dare_ say that about him."

"I -"

"No, Stanley. Listen to me. For once in your life, just _listen_. You pretended to be Stanford Pines for thirty years, but you're not him. You never were."

There's a long, frozen silence. The other Stan's voice comes, and for a moment he can't recognize it because it comes low and vacant.

"Why can't you just let me be him, Sixer?" He asks, in a tone of genuine puzzlement. "Why can't you just let me be worth _something_ , just for a little while?"

Ford flinches, but he speaks anyways. "Because Stanley Pines _is_ worth something," he says.

The other Stan snorts in derision.

"He's worth something to the kids," Ford continues, voice hard. "He _must_ have because Gods know they haven't slept since you were sucked into that rift, three days ago. When Fiddleford and I finally got portable dimension travel up and running, they wouldn't take no for an answer."

He chuckles softly at that. "I... have never before felt so threatened by a pair of twelve-year-olds."

The other Stan doesn't reply.

"He's worth something to those townspeople, too," Ford continues, taking full advantage of the conversation to edge a bit closer to his brother. "You know, I lived in that town for ten years and didn't remember a single name! I thought I was about to be feathered and tarred when half the population of Gravity Falls popped up at my door, demanding to know what had happened to you. Stanley, I - don't know exactly how much money you've conned from them, but I _can_ tell you for sure that you've stolen plenty of hearts playing Mr. Mystery in that town."

"I've always been good at conning people into thinking I'm actually worth somethin'," the other Stan mutters under his breath.

"And what about me?" Ford asks, and he sounds almost amused. "Stanley, you must be in over your head if you think you can fool _me_ for any decent amount of time."

The other Stan shuffles a bit. "I dunno," he says at last. "What - what _does_ Ford think?"

His brother smiles, something wistful in his expression. "Ford thinks there's been far too many years wasted for us to spend anymore time bickering and at each other's throats," Ford says. "He thinks that - he _was_ angry. Bitterly angry, because he felt betrayed and used by the one person he trusted entirely. He clung onto that for so... _too_ many years, because he didn't want to think that he lost his brother because of an accident. Because he didn't want to think that _losing_ his brother was because of a mistake."

He takes a breath. "Ford thinks - he didn't realize just how much he had been okay with losing, until he lost it. Until he lost _you_. And that he had never been okay with that, after all."

The other Stan wobbles a bit at that, and sits down carefully on the glass-shard-covered ground.

Ford sinks down next to him, puts his hand on his shoulder. His brother flinches for one brief moment, and then he lets him.

They're directly at eye-level with Stan now, and through the keyhole he can see everything. Every twinge of emotion on their faces, how Ford's hands are shaking despite his best attempts to keep them still, the way the other Stan keeps swallowing, unable to meet his brother's eyes.

"Ford thinks Stanley Pines is the bravest man he had ever known," Ford says softly, "You're his hero, because you saved him in more ways than you know. He wants him back, back in our dimension, back in our home. Back with our family, because Gods know there isn't one without you. And... more than anything else..."

He swallows. "He wants to introduce you to that Stanley Pines. The one that everyone knows, but you. The Grunkle that Dipper and Mabel adore, the Mr. Mystery that's the life of the town. The brother who he - _I_ could never give up, not for anything."

"Because to me... Stanley Pines is worth _everything_."

And over on the other side of the door, despite his best efforts, Stan lets out a low sob.

Ford whips his head around, eyes bewildered-owl-wide behind his glasses.

Their eyes meet.

" _Stan?_ "

Stan doesn't know what to do, for one long, frozen second.

Then he scrambles up, unsteady and terrified, and he runs.

 

* * *

 

Stan sits for a long while on the back porch of the Shack, partly because he really needs some fresh air after everything he had just - after everything that had just happened. Partly because there isn't anywhere else he can go in the Shack without getting into a conversation he really doesn't want, not right now.

He watches the sun in the sky and how it shines through the clouds, and tries his very best not to think too hard about any of the two dozen things screaming and bellowing in the back of his mind.

Stan hears the footsteps first, as steady and careful as their owner.

"We're leaving for our home dimension in a few hours," says the Ford from the other dimension, who was not his and never had been. He sits down right beside him, sticking up his knees in the same position that makes them look like overgrown ten-year-olds.

"Huh."

"We - would stay longer, but with the sheer number of dimensional counterparts we have in one place, it's a tremendous risk. I... suppose we've used up most of our luck already," Ford explains. "It wouldn't be wise to hope for more."

"I get it," Stan says a bit roughly. "You gotta go. It's fine. This isn't your dimension, anyways."

"Perhaps." And they're quiet for a while, just soaking in the sunlight and breathing in the sweet scent of the Oregon summer breeze.

"I owe you an apology," Ford says suddenly. "I shouldn't have kept it from you. It is - as much to do with you as it has to do with me."

"By which you mean him. The other Stan Pines."

"I do." He pauses, just a bit. "It's - a very long and complicated story, what happened to him. What happened to us. What it comes down to is, Stanley gave up his mind to save the world. I had to erase his entire identity as Stanley Pines."

Ford sighs. "There's hundreds, thousands of ways I can put it to make it sound better than it is. I wiped his memories of himself. I destroyed his mind. But what it comes down to is... I killed my own brother."

Stan snorts. "He sure seems alive and kicking to me, Sixer."

"He shouldn't have been, not in anyway important."

And he goes quiet.

"I never expected that he would have another identity apart from his own to cling onto," Ford says. "I didn't think. But in retrospect, he - you - spent thirty years fooling the people we were closest to into thinking you were me. He had created more than a mask. He had an entire persona, built off of everything he thought I was."

Despite himself, Stan thinks back to his conversation with the man he had thought was Ford. How everything he had said seemed to be so on the nose, so exactly congruent to what Stan had always expected his brother to say to him. How 'Ford' had seized so immediately on the specific events that Stan would stay up turning over and over in his head, blaming, cursing himself.

"Yeah, I guess," he says nonchalantly.

"It seems he has a very particular idea of who I am," his brother says, voice carefully blank. "Specifically, in terms of just what I thought of him."

The wind blows loose several of the leaves from the nearby tree, and they fly past them in oddly lazy loops.

"I understand how he could have gotten those ideas," Ford says, "but he wasn't right at all."

Stan snorts. "You know I was there listening in, Sixer," he says flatly. "You know I heard everything you said to 'im. No need to repeat it for my benefit."

"Are you sure?" His brother asks, voice quiet.

For a long while, he doesn't say anything back. He tries the words out in his mouth once, twice, and then again, and they feel so unfitting and bitter in there he wants to swallow them down and let them fester, like everything else does.

But not this time, he tells himself. He doesn't have another chance.

It takes Stan five tries to get it out.

"Do you think my Ford will be like you?" He asks over the lump in his throat, raw and heavy and growing by the second. "Do you think he - thinks the same way?"

Ford doesn't reply for a long moment. Stan feels like he's forgotten how to breathe.

"There are countless theories on what the existence of a multiverse means for its denizens," his brother says finally, looking down at his hands. "There's an infinite amount of possibilities, that I can agree with. But I refuse to believe that means every possibility is equally possible. Or even that every possibility must exist in this system we all live in. After all, I can spend my entire life generating an infinite number of positive integers, and never produce zero."

"Um."

Ford looks back up, and there's a new softness in his expression.

"He will," he says, with a certainty that makes Stan's mouth go dry. "He might be angry, he might be thankless, he might punch you in the face and tell you to move out of the Shack by summer's end. I can be... incredibly foolish, to say the least. But a Stanford Pines who doesn't truly love his brother, is no Stanford Pines at all."

There's nothing Stan can say that feels right. He settles for silence, and tries to wipe away the burning in his eyes that he tells himself is his allergies acting up.

"Before I leave," his brother says suddenly, "let's go down to the basement laboratory. There's a few things I can help you with. Some... unfortunate consequences to opening the portal that we can deal with now. And... I think there are some things I want to say to your Ford, once he comes back. I'll need a pen and some paper."

He's not sure what exactly Ford's talking about, but it sounds like a good thing.

"Hey, Ford?" Stan asks, a bit roughly.

"Yes, Stanley?"

It's hard for him to find the right words.

"The other me, is he, uh. Is he gonna be alright?"

Ford doesn't hesitate. "He will be," he says confidently, like there was no other possibility out there. "He already remembers quite a bit, just... jumbled, in bits and pieces that fit together in ways they shouldn't. But just seeing Dipper and Mabel did him a lot of good, it seems."

"Huh."

"It's just a matter of time."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Good," Stan says, and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Does Sunday count as part of the new week? Eh. I Just want to finish a Stanuary entry on time.
> 
> This should be finished within the next day or so if I can maintain this motivation.
> 
> Let me know what you think! As always, any and all predictions, expectations, theories are welcomed. Doesn't have to be particularly detailed or anything, I just like the feeling of not throwing stuff out into the void.


End file.
